Build Not Buy

Posted on July 30, 2010 by Scott Gould

As MasterCard have told us, there are some things money can’t buy:

You can buy a house, but you make a home
You can buy a car, but you learn to drive
You can pay for a good wedding, but that doesn’t make you a good husband
You can buy a ball, but it doesn’t make you a player

Even going to the gym and paying for a personal trainer doesn’t make you fit – you have to do the work and build up your body.

Here’s what I’m seeing a lot of: people buying and selling, but few building.

I think this is what separates just any old event from a community driven event, or separates any old product from a lifestyle product.

What I’m seeing even fewer of is people who don’t just buy an education and theory, but build learning and reality.

Your Leading Thoughts

Take a moment and tell us – what are you building?
What is the market for building?

Get In The Arena

Posted on July 24, 2010 by Scott Gould

Most churches have passive banners from the 1980′s of Jesus on their walls. We have this quote by Roosevelt on a giant 4 x 3 metre banner I designed:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Here’s the challenge:

1. Take this weekend to firstly rest and refreshen. Enjoy your loved ones, meet new people, go for a drive – whatever it is. Be sure you something that helps you get a bit of perspective. Mine is a drive in the country.

2. Then get out paper and pen, and write down the deepest things in your heart that you aren’t moving towards like you know you should do.

3. Pick one and write down the very next action, with a due date.

4. Surround yourself with comrades that are also in the arena, for accountability and encouragement. You’ll need them both.

5. Do it. And don’t listen to a single word from any detractors. (If you need to get over failure, read this from Olivier Blanchard.)

Your Leading Thoughts

What is it?

Robin’s Thoughts on Maintenance

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Scott Gould

In our discussion recently on “it’s easier to obtain than maintain“, we looked at how we deal with the everyday ‘boring’ work, considering most of us are type A, driven, motivation fuelled people.

One comment really stuck at as having a lot of gold in, from my dear friend Robin Dickinson. (It’s not the first time. He’s been doing this for a year now…)

Before I quote the comment and share my thoughts on what he said, it’s important to point out in the spirit of curation that Robin’s blog is the best self-focus and business development blog that I engage with, and also a model community for many to follow on what Robin and I call the ‘comment driven blog’.

Robin has innovated a few things on his blog. First of all, the comment driven blog post as mentioned above, 2 minute ‘Black Chair‘ videos, and more recently, the start of the Sharewords community through a blog post that has had over 1,000 comments. This blog post is in my opinion an internet phenomena, and a shining example of a value-based approach towards social media (and one that I follow.) I thoroughly recommend that you subscribe in your RSS and get acquainted with Robin on Twitter.

How A Master Maintains

The point is that Robin is someone who continually obtains – but is also the best I know at maintaining. So when he left this comment, and with such focus, I listened. Here it is (original link):

“what practical skills and tips have you learnt to keep things maintained?”

Quick list, in no particular order:

* Have a long-term plan (3-5 year horizon);
* Know what really pays the bills and stick to it;
* Have a life outside of work;
* Pace yourself;
* Know when and what to automate and delegate;
* Max-min key processes: design for maximum result for minimum effort;
* Measure and track key business indicators;
* Take full control of and responsibility for the numbers – the finances;
* Understand WHY you are doing what you do – have a solid rationale;
* Understand how to achieve and stay diamond focused on what really works.

My takeaways: there is balance here. Practically, I can see that Robin splits his days between obtaining new and maintaining the old, and I can see that when it comes to maintenance, he maintains the fun stuff and he maintains the essential and sometimes boring stuff too. The real winner is that he harnesses the power of a habit that has a strong focus.

Your Leading Thoughts

I’ll be honest with you – my daily routine has become a bit unbalanced as of late. When I’m in balance, I find I am far more productive, but out of balance I work harder but find I punching a lot of air and tend to be unfocussed and less productive even though I am working more.

How balanced are you? How so you balance obtaining with maintaining?
And how can we help each other to become more balanced?

Photo courtesy of han s’

Change is the Essence of Growth

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Scott Gould

A note today about change.

Change is the essence of growth. To not change – that is truly destructive. Change means we are fresh, focussing tighter. Something that Julien Smith spoke about on his blog recently too.

Of course, the typically participator at this blog is someone who is changing regularly. My question then is how do we change?

As you know, I’m a stickler for a good framework. I need a model or process that I can repeat. So I wonder what we are doing to regularly change – is change something that we are intuiting or do some people have a structured approach?

Perhaps the best book I’ve read on this recently, and one of the best altogether, is Switch by Chip and Dan Heath (affiliate link). This book was doing the rounds, so I jumped on the bandwagon and was not disappointed.

They have three key points: Direct the rider (decision making), motivate the elephant (emotional motivation), shape the path (situational optimisation).

I’m starting to use this (and their sub points they have too – best if you buy the book and read) and it’s proving quite useful. I’ve been doing these three for years, but now I am more clearly understanding the why of why I do them, and can better direct, motivate and shape myself!

Your Leading Thoughts

Do you have a relentless pursuit for something ‘more’ that requires to change often? What does this look like? Why change?
Does your frequent change mean you often leave things unfinished?
How do you change? As in – how do you do the process of change?

Photo courtesy of AndYaDontStop